What is an Amendment?
What is an Amendment?
Amendment comes from the word “amend,†which means making a change in an existing piece of document to improve it. Amendment, therefore, means a change made on a document, especially a legal one, to make it more effective.
Amendment Details
There are many documents in this modern-day era, including legal, business, and even personal documents. Most documents aren’t cast in stone, which means that the writer can modify them at any point in the writing process or after the initial writing is complete. In the case where the document is not as effective as intended, or if changes have taken place in the areas affected by the document, the writer can review it. After the review, the committee assigned to the role can decide whether the document is suitable for the moment or not.
If the review committee discovers the document to be defective in any way, then they can suggest possible amendments. Most of the time, the people pressured by the policies contained in the document are the cause for the review process. This kind of negative pressure from the public means that some sections of the document might either be oppressive or discriminative in a certain way. It is up to the review committee to make amendments that will be favorable to all the public members but still uphold the principles as initially intended.
One can make amendments to all kinds of documents, not just legal ones. When a company finds out that part of a strategy in its business plan doesn’t work effectively, it’s entitled to make changes that will suit its business needs. The company makes these improvisations made to the plan to make the strategy work out better. Amendments aren’t made to change a whole document, but they only change the section that seems to be defective.
Example of Amendment
Let’s say that you reside in a country with a stable government that has enforced many policies ever since its establishment. The government made all the policies to serve and protect every citizen in the country equally. However, most of the laws were written when the country was still being developed into a full-blown nation. This shows that many events have taken place ever since the government first set the policies that still affect its citizens up to date.
Due to changes in your people’s living standards, some of the policies contained in your constitution have become outdated. Eventually, some of the citizens rise up to try and convince the government to change some policies that negatively affect them. This forces the government to review some of the public demands to prevent any further uproar that might lead to clashes. The government then launches a referendum in which every legal adult in the country is to give a vote on whether the constitution should be reviewed or not.
Without too much surprise, the majority of the public votes yes, and the government has no choice but to make changes to the constitution. After the government passes the amendments, the public, including you, is satisfied because some defective and outdated policies are done away with, and the government had replaced them with policies that are more relevant to the current times. The government has amended the constitution to improve the standards of living of the public.
Significance of Amendment
Amendments come in handy when an existing document doesn’t work the way it is supposed to. The amendments might involve modifying a section of a policy, or the writer can completely do away with the policy. Companies can make these changes to improve the existing policies, especially when it’s evident they aren’t working accordingly. Amendments prove that you can change a document to adapt to the changing times.
Without amendments, some policies would be oppressive or discriminative with the change in the people’s lives. This would, in turn, lead to multiple protests when the public feels that the government or the people in charge don’t pay attention to their grievances. The public plays a significant part in the lawmaking process since laws and policies need to be created by and serve the people.